KIEEK!

A goblin let out its final cry for life under Hero’s heels.

 

[You have received 5 XP]

[Experience threshold achieved]

[You have 1 level point]

[Would you like to raise your level?]

 

Screens popped up in front of Hero. Heavy breaths escaped his mouth as his body repeatedly moved up and down. He stood up and stumbled backwards.

Behind him, there were ten dead goblins. Four of which he killed himself. The other six were killed by Park Chul, Lee Young-Soon and the others. Two of their members were killed at the hands of the goblins Hero just defeated.

Some girls were on the floor crying and one of them even vomited at the gory sight.

Exhausted, Hero fell on his butt with sweat on his face and his hands numb.

‘As I thought, bashing in skulls is not easy with 11 strength points. I’ll have to get stronger.’

He looked at his shaking hands, then at the others. Lee Young-Soon was shivering in one of the corners, her dagger on the floor. Park Chul on the other hand, to Hero’s surprise, was attending to everyone else, ignoring the trauma and pain he himself might have received.

‘Hmm, Park Chul, huh? I don’t remember him, but he seems to have potential.’

Calling for his status, a purple screen popped up in front of him. He quickly glossed through it and sighed.

 

[STATUS

[Name: Jake Woo-Sung

[Tag: #69379

[Level: 1

[Species: Human

[Titles: |Doomed|, |First Blood|

[Attributes: -

[Traits: |Heroic|, |Cunning|, |Hardworking|

[Skills: -

[Strength: 11           Speed: 12            Defense: 7            Magic: 00

[You currently have 1 level point]

 

He groaned after seeing it. He put his hand to his chest and coughed. The last goblin headbutt his chest and he could feel that a rib was broken.

‘Damn, that thing was like a baseball bat.’

 

DING!

[Survive the Tutorial 3]

[Wow, you guys did really well for combat class. Anyway, here’s a useful tip. There’s strength in numbers. Form a party so you can split your stat points equally]

[To form a party just send a party request]

 

Hero looked at the screen with a sort of distaste in his mouth. He looked at the others then at the screen again. The others were also confused and looked at one another, before settling their eyes on Hero.

“Ok, listen up everybody. I’m sending party requests to each and every single one of you. I’ll teach you how to do it. Status screen.”

His status screen appeared before them all and he pointed at his Player tag.

“This tag is used to identify us. Like a UID in video games. Simply call out this number and there’ll be various functions. With it you can send messages to allies whose tags you know, and you can also form parties with them. So, let me see your status screens so I can party up with you.”

Still hesitant, they all looked at him. His actions were getting needlessly suspicious by the second. His calm, his knowledge, his fighting. Everything suggested he knew way more than them and that scared them. They were still unsure whether he was trustworthy. Hero noticed this quickly and spoke.

“You’re hesitating again. That’s what got those two over there killed, you know? Hurry it up.”

Unconsciously, they all found themselves glancing at the corpses from the corner of their eyes. One girl shakily stepped forward and showed her screen to him. He sent her a party request and she accepted.

 

[You have formed a party with Player #69579 (Ryuk So-Yeon)]

[You possess the Party Leader role]

[All stats will be distributed amongst party members equally.]

 

‘Huh? Ryuk So-Yeon? Sounds familiar…’

He looked at the girl closer. She had black hair that was currently a mess, a lean figure and a completely average face with grey eyes and messed up make-up – the result of crying, running and sweating. Afterwards, he looked at the others.

“Ok. There’s currently ten of us. I’ll split us up into three groups of three. Park Chul, you’ll take one group. Lee Young-Soon you’ll take the oth-“

“No.”

Hero was interrupted by a low voice. Looking towards the source, he found a shaking Lee Young-Soon on the ground.

“What?”

“No. I won’t follow you.”

“Do you want to die?”

“Following you will lead me to death.”

She stood up and looked towards the door where the goblins came through.

“What are you talking about?”

He asked her, trying to grab her hand, but she swiped at his, making him hesitate.

“I don’t trust you, Hero. And neither should the rest of you.”

“What do you mean you don’t trust me? Have I not helped you lot to survive till now?”

“Yes, you have. That’s even more suspicious since you’ve known about all this yet you didn’t inform any of us the moment it happened. You let some people die…”

“That was bey-“

“Don’t talk. I will not listen to you.”

She looked out the door and saw that it was dark. The lights weren’t functioning so she took out her phone. Luckily the Aegini just stopped the network. Not the phone functions itself. She turned on the flashlight and there was nothing there. Just a hollow path way with claw marks on the walls and broken glass. All the creatures that were once there had disappeared.

‘Since it’s just like a video game do the tutorial monsters also disappear when their part is over?’

She came to a realization and noticed that it would be safe for her to go out now. She gripped the handle of the dagger tightly then looked back in the room. There was no one there she liked or cared about. She hadn’t even spoken to them. All of them except Hero that is. And she didn’t trust him. He was hiding too much from all of them and that would only make them die faster. For all she knew he was just using them to clear this tutorial stage then move on to the real stuff.

A growl echoed through the halls and everyone heard it. Lee Young-Soon shivered as soon as she heard it.

“There’s more dangerous beasts out there. If you stick with me, you will survive this. I promise you.”

He was already over her with a serious look in his eyes. A look that made her almost want to trust him, but her instincts said otherwise.

‘I’m not going to be some tool for you, hero.’

She thought, before slamming the door shut and venturing off.

Hero sighed then looked at the others.

“Any of you want to face that beast with her?”

They all shook their heads.

“Alright then. We’ll need another Party head. You guys should choose someone you want to lead you amongst Park Chul and myself.”

“Huh? I’ll be leading them too?”

“Well, yes. I can’t do this myself. I’ll need partners.”

Hero said.

‘I need people that the others trust to do convincing for me or there’ll be more like Lee Young-Soon. Park Chul was already the respected leader of his group, so another one wouldn’t be bad.’

He thought to himself with his hands to his chin. Then his eyes caught on to something.

“Hey, Park Chul. Is your leg alright? Kicking that goblin must have hurt it quite a bit.”

The teen grabbed Park Chul’s leg and rose it up before Park Chul could even make a statement.

“D-Don’t worry about it. I-I can man-OW!”

Hero slightly touched it yet the reaction that came was one of immense pain.

“It’s swollen. Nothing too serious, but it will hurt and I doubt you’d even be able to run.”

“So what? It’s not like I have a choice.”

“You’re benched.”

“What?”

“You’re joining my party. I’ll find someone else to take charge of the other party. Tell me which of your friends you trust the most.”

*Sniff* *Sniff*

Park Chul had started a waterworks of happy tears. Hero, failing to understand Park Chul decided to ignore it as a man’s pride being torn to shred. This made him grin accidentally.

‘Nothing like breaking a man’s pride.’

“Jin-Young. I trust Jin-Young.”

“Oh? Good then. Jin-Young. Come over here.”

Hero called for the guy who saved Park Chul earlier. Out of everyone present, he looked the most thuggish with his blonde dyed hair and nose and ear piercings. 

“You’ll take Park Chul’s party leader position temporarily. You will give the position back to him once his leg is healed. Do you understand?”

Jin-Young looked at Park Chul then nodded.

“Sure then. Also, we’ve selected the other party leader.”

“Already?”

“We figured we didn’t have much time so we chose someone who was the leader of the girls.”

He pointed at one of the girls who stood in the midst of the others. Her blue hair was cut short with the bangs covering one eye and a choker on her neck.

“That’s Chaeri.”

“Chaeri? I see. In that case, I want to talk to both of you then. So can you call her for me?”

He whistled and rose his hand up to signal for her to come. She walked quickly to join up with them. Hero led them to a corner of the room out of ears length and started to speak to them.

“Ok, here’s the deal. Right now, most of the monsters spread on campus will be slow and stupid. So, it will be easy to avoid detection, however, fighting them is a whole other matter.”

“So, are you planning our escape?”

Chaeri asked.

“Not quite. I want us to practice first.”

“Practice what?”

“Team work.”

“Huh?”

Both of them blurted out.

“Um, it’s like this. Take it that the auditorium is our territory and the school is unchartered territory. We will need to explore more territory and make it our own, while avoiding dangerous beasts.”

“I see. So basically, this is sort of like that Kingdom Expansion game?”

Both Hero and Jin-Young were shocked by what she said.

“Don’t look at me like that. One of my exes was a total pro gamer, you know?”

“Um… sure. In that case I take it you know what must be done?”

“Oh! I now totally get why you split us into groups of three!”

She shouted, getting the other’s attentions. Hero put his finger to her mouth to silence her. When the others stopped looking at them, Hero sighed then let go.

“If you do, don’t shout. I even doubt you actually know the reason for the groups of three.”

“I totes do! Oops… sorry.”

She lowered her voice after realizing that her voice was too loud.

“Explain.”

“Basically, in Kingdom Expansion, there are three main types of people you need. There’s the leader who stays behind and manages affairs in the territory. Next there’s the scouts. They move out into the unchartered territory and bring back information on what they saw. Then we have the soldiers whose duties are to move out on the leader’s orders with the scouts to claim territory. That’s what you’ve done with us, right? Jin-Young’s group will probably be the scouts, yours the soldiers and mine, the leaders. Only that mine is in name alone since you’re the actual leader.”

Chaeri completely revealed Heroes intentions, leaving both him and Jin-Young shocked and impressed.

Her grinned and stood up.

“I’m impressed. Although there’s one flaw in your interpretation.”

“One flaw? What’s that?”

Hero pointed at her face.

“You’re part of the soldier group, no two ways about it.”